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May 2010

May 27, 2010

This week I thought I’d diverge a bit from the Energy Efficiency theme and share some funny engineering experiences I’ve had over the years. I’ve been a practicing engineer for over 30 years and have been involved reviewing projects and circuit designs a good part of that period. I’ve collected a list of several of my favorite oversights (the names have been withheld to protect the guilty). Hope you enjoy these as I did when I found them!

Isolate YourselfOne of the funniest (and probably most embarrassing) "faux pas" I’ve seen was the attempt to provide high voltage isolation for a power supply. In a design review I had recommended a 0.100" clearance between the primary and secondary side. About two months later the engineer called me and was concerned about something in the design that was causing them to fail their HV isolation test. He emailed me the layout and in about 10 seconds it became apparent what had happened. The designer passed my recommendation to the layout technician who instructed their auto-router to provide the 0.100" clearance between the primary and secondary side... the auto-router did just that - funny how machines do exactly what you tell them. The software provided exactly 0.100" clearance between the PCB lands on the primary and secondary sides of the transformer but left the default clearance of 0.010" on all the others. It takes about 70kV to jump 1" in dry air... it would only take around 700V to get across the barrier the auto-router provided thus the failing board. Luckily, it was an easy fix and the board passed without issue... the moral of the story? Don’t think your auto-router knows more than you do...

Stability Is Your FriendOne day I get a call from an aerospace engineer that was concerned that a batch of voltage regulators were not working properly in their circuit. The design had been working fine for years, but lately they were experiencing failures due to an apparent oscillation in the output voltage of our regulator... this was a very "mission critical" military application that was using a linear voltage regulator to provide a clean voltage in a projectile. I asked the engineer to describe the design. He went on to describe the input power stage and the large heat-sink mounted on the side of the projectile where the regulator was mounted. The regulator’s leads were then wired to the PCB where they provided the regulated voltage - about 16 inches away. The first question I asked was where the output capacitor was located - it was on the PCB 16 inches from the regulator! I choked for a moment realizing that it was amazing these things were working at all - real kudos to the National Semiconductor engineer that designed the regulator. Effectively what the aerospace engineer had done was place parasitic inductors (the wire) in series with the capacitor shifting the stability point of the regulator right to the edge... most of them worked at the temperature where these "projectiles" were deployed... the new batch of regulators had higher gains and thus were oscillating. I gently told the guy on the phone the bad news and referred him to the data sheet where it clearly stated how close the output cap had to be to the regulator to guarantee stability. This raised the next question, "if they are working now, will they continue to work?" The answer was - maybe. It depends on so many factors including process aging, temperature, the type of wire used and gauge. The engineer on the phone suddenly inhaled, thanked me for my help and hung up... I assume that the problem was resolved. I didn’t sleep well for about a year after that.

The Linear Boost Converter - Not!OK, this one really made me think... where did we go wrong in writing the data sheet. I received this email from an "engineer" that was wondering why his circuit was not working properly. I replied and asked for that section of the schematic so I could review the design. Within the hour an email with an attachment showed up. I opened the PDF and had to stare for a minute... this could not be right. They were using a linear regulator where the input voltage was lower than the programmed (resistor divider value) output voltage. They were supplying 5V to the regulator and expecting 12V at the output! This is fine for one of our boost simple switchers, but not going to work for a linear regulator. OK, now I wondered how I was going to respond to this... so I sent a copy of the data sheet pointing out the "drop-out" voltage or loss component of the regulator along with a boost power supply application note and introduced this person to the world of switching regulators. I doubt that would happen today since integrated switching regulators are so common and most likely taught in university programs.

DisclaimerAny similarities to the above problems are coincidental and not intended to make you feel bad if you made the same mistake... we’ve all made mistakes - the real question is "did you learn from them?" Engineering history is filled with stories of failures or bad decisions ("let’s use the most reactive chemical in the world to float a dirigible" kind of thing). But the main thing is that we learn and improve our skills as engineers - I certainly have tried and continue to do so every day. Hope you enjoyed these tails from the past. Till next time...

May 14, 2010

I often write about saving energy, improving efficiency, and lowering your planetary impact... so it’s time for me to come clean and show you my efforts to reduce my carbon footprint. When I first designed my home back in 2000, I wasn’t thinking energy costs were going to skyrocket. Instead I went for good efficiency, but not great efficiency... I’m paying for that now. Even though our home is built from solid concrete poured walls with very high "R" factors, the overall open design allows large amounts of leakage through many avenues such as doors and windows. Along with the basic window films, improved insulation, and better living habits we still struggle trying to keep our home comfortable, yet efficient in the use of electricity and propane gas...

I’ve given this much thought over the years and have recently embarked (as mentioned in my prior post, "Ignorance is Bliss") on a massive project to automate, well... just about everything that can be automated in our home. The idea is to instrument everything (or most things that use power) to understand where the energy is going and to use that information for making decisions on energy use. For example, if the TV and lights are on in the family room and the alarm system is set to "AWAY" mode, then the system should turn off the TV, adjust the thermostat to save power and turn off all the lights. In everyday life, we are so caught up in our schedule that remembering to do these simple things falls far down on our list. A "Smart Home" that knows your lifestyle can save you power if it is properly equipped - that’s where "getting your hands dirty" comes in... however, it feels like I’m trying to move an eight lane highway without disrupting the flow of traffic - not so easy (see my wiring closet photo below).

I never thought about how isolated our home's systems were until I began this project. The lights were originally manual switches (I was the automation) which I replaced over a period of a year with Universal Power-line Bus (UPB) smart switches that are networked together over the power line (no new wires). The thermostats were individual manual units without setback or other communications ability. The hot water heater is gas (propane) and is simply on or off... same with the recirculation pump. The appliances have no power metering or timing ability and cannot communicate with anything - except a human operator. The list goes on... so you can see the complexity of trying to tie all of these disjointed systems together as well as adding the sub-metering ability.

So I’ve begun by prioritizing the largest users of power that I can control... My list is HVAC, Lighting and hot water (propane). I need to know what’s on as well as the state of the home (security set away or home, time of day, weather conditions, etc.) to make proper decisions. The lighting system is 90% complete - most all switches are automated and networked so I can address a single unit or using the protocol, address all units at once via "links". These links are pre-programmed to take a switch to a certain level (on, off, 20%, etc.). So using an "all off" link, I can turn all the lights in the house off in one command.

The HVAC is a bit more complicated due to multiple air handlers... they need to be coordinated so they are not fighting each other to cool or heat the home. A zoned system would have been much better (I wasn’t watching the store that day...), but we have what we have. So, replacing each thermostat with a computerized setback version was the first step (and most reasonably priced solution). This has worked to greatly reduce our consumption in general, but there’s still money on the table. The next step is automated thermostats with communications ability. These can be networked (RS-485, UPB, etc.) so that computer software can force a condition (off, setback, etc.).

The hot water is simpler since we have a recirculating pump that can be turned off - this limits how much water is being heated and can dynamically be turned on when people are home thus saving propane. The appliances are a different matter. There have been talks for years of appliance communication standards so that HA systems can have control (the universal remote for everything, etc.). Each appliance manufacturer had their proprietary scheme of how it should be done, and after years of trying to come to a common standard, it fell apart. This was partially due to a lack of a "need" - no one could rationalize why someone might want to control their washer, dryer, oven or dish-washer from a home computer... until oil prices shot up sending electricity costs through the roof. I personally felt that one and I’m sure you did too. However, no one in our home has finished cooking and left the oven on (so far), so that’s pretty low on my priority list...

If you want to know more about the ancient attempts for unifying everything in the home, check out the EIA-600 CEBus standard... some really great OOP concepts, but it never flew. Also UPB, INSTEON, and Z-Wave are all lighting (and other equipment) control standards with products available today... I’ll keep you updated as I try to finish what I’ve started, but as they say, "The Blacksmith’s kitchen often has wooden utensils". Till next time...